Google Home spouts crazy talk with fake news in answers

March 6, 2017

Transcript

Sometimes Google gets it wrong.
Google is once again being criticised for highlighting untrue and fake news stories, but this time the focus is around the Google Home smart speaker.
When you ask Google Home a question, it will read off top search results with a voice of authority.
Even if that top result is a bucket of crazy.
BBC Tech reporter Rory Cellan-Jones gave the crazy pot a stir this weekend when he posted a video asking his Google Home if Obama is planning a coup.
The answer,
According to details exposed in Western Center for Journalism, the
Exclusive video.
Not only could Obama be in bed with the Communist Chinese, Obama may be, in fact, may be planning a Communist coup de T-A-T at the end of his term in 2016.
Then others chimed in.
Search Engine Land editor Danny Sullivan posted a video with his own extreme questions, such as, are Republicans fascists?
Yes, Republicans equals Nazis.
There have been a number of stories highlighting Google's problem with presenting answers to searched questions.
In this case, it's part of something called featured snippets.
If you ask a question, Google finds a site that may have your answer, and it highlights a snippet of that web page.
But sometimes the system will pick up bogus answers from sketchy sources.
In a web search, you can always see the other results, but on Google home all you're hearing is the top answer without perspective.
Just listen to the answer it gives when I ask if women are better than men.
Women are smarter and have a higher college graduation rate.
In the future, women will likely be the dominant gender.
Women also tend to make better leaders.
This is no real purpose for other men to help reproduce.>> Well maybe it's not always a problem.
Google says sometimes mistakes happen with this feature.
It removes several of the fake answer snippets and it will apologise for any offence it may of caused.
We've been told as children that there are no stupid questions but I think Google is making the case otherwise.
Because if you ask something crazy out of your Google home Prepare to get some crazy search results thrown right back at you.
Also worth noting, Amazon's Alexa does not spit out these wild unedited answers the same way Google does.
So if you have kids at home, who tend to say the darndest things, maybe it's best to not let them talk to Google.